Light sloped beyond the hills, fleeing from a sky foaming with stars above a scribbled treeline, ink-black against a bleeding sun. Around her sagged the ancient graveyard, where the old bones called to her from beneath her feet. The dead ones rested, but their very quietude made her restless, as a gnawing ache within her screamed against the serenity: we are not all asleep here!

As the headstones around her faded into a flat gray dusk Jada sank to her knees and wormed her fingers into the damp grass around her. The tramp of soldiers clambering up the cemetery road unnerved her for a moment – she had not expected to do this again, let alone defend herself in this way – but she shook off her misgivings and turned instead to the task at hand: crafting some shadows of her own.